may 07 - te anau - dunedin - christchurch
what in tarnation?! i didn't realise i've missed so many days!
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the night in te anau we decided not to drive to invercargill after all as after the night in dunedin, we should be moving early towards christchurch. unanimously we all wanted to spend more time exploring dunedin, so we had to say goodbye to the promise of delicious oysters of the bluff.
driving to dunedin from te anau means we were moving away from the southern alps and driving into the beach coast. we stopped at a town called clinton, and right after that gore. heee. that tickled me.
the drive was pretty uneventul except for suddenly encountering a small lorry carrying a "danger ahead" sign... and then encountering a lorry carrying a "house follows" sign (which we scratched our head at) and then... A HUGE LORRY CARRYING A WHOLE FREAKING HOUSE. the house was the width of the whole road so our car was directed to rest wayyyyyyyyy over the shoulder.
only in NZ????????????????????
house follows. they transport whole houses too over here.
dunedin is the center of otago... it's pretty big. we saw houses on hills. and it's a pretty hilly place. our backpackers sits next to quite a steep hill and we did have to drag our ass and our bags up a steep driveway. the backpackers is and old mansion. i think it's quite charming. and for the first time we encountered rooms that had no locks at the door.
but these orang putih serious tak kisah. they just leave their bags in their rooms with the door wide open. i guess to show that there's no one in.
huh.
so our plans were not truly formed at this point - roughly we want to go see the albatross, the steepest street in the world and, LUNCH. a quick reference on the orange guide book mentioned a small and charming village by the sea, portobello, so we thought it'd be a great place to have seafood. we stopped by the I on the octagon (center of dunedin) and the lady was actually quite doubtful about the seafood part, and mentioned that to truly see the albatross you'd have to go on a tour. so we decided to still check out the fishing village and maybe discuss again about the albatross.
we drove on the road of the dunedin peninsula and arrived at portobello. a small, tiny, just a few establishments "village". no seafood in sight. terus potong mood. not to mention that we are stillllllllllll hungry. i think that was why without mentioning it we abandoned the albatross center and headed back into the city. stopped at baldwin street, the steepest street, and yup. it looks scary from a distance. we didn't even try going on it on foot. tengok dari jauh je. but there were two cars that went up it, and we cheered when they managed to get on top and turn back down again (at one point the cars really did look like they were struggling up the incline). we didn't dare go up ourselves because the car was not ours, it was rented, if something goes wrong... mati we alls.
we were still hungry. (plannya nak makan besar di dunedin)
so we headed to the botanical garden with intentions to have a small picnic (we had chips and dips and juices) but it turned out we just walked around, taking pictures, throwing up yellow leaves for a "fall picture", fed the ducks, admired the flowers, smelled a lot of roses... all while dragging the food around. hampeh. but botanical garden is beauuuuuuuuuuuutiful.
so we just decided to park our car at our motel and then walk into town looking for food. (susah carik parking in city). we were looking for fish and chips. we walked a longggggggggggggg way. every foodplace has ham in it. takdok fish and chips.
finally we decided to eat at burger king... so we went down to a foodcourt in a mall. guess what we found? halal. kebab.
kebab je la...sebab dah lapar.
sigh.
after dinner, walked back to our motel to get our car to drive to university of otago to get pictures.
and that's it for dunedin. (14th april)
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thursday, 15th april - we set out early again from dunedin, wanting to make sure we reach christchurch before noon. it will be about a 4-5 hrs drive. (nak shopping kat christchurch, dan... MAKAN BESA)
we already planned to stop at oamaru, and timaru. we thought we could get a salmon lunch in timaru.
when we left the backpackers it was still dark.
finally we spotted the sea, a different sight from the time when we first started our journey. we stopped by shag point because the guidebook said it's a place for penguin viewing. we caught the sunrise - gorgeous on the coast, and drove deeper along the road heading towards a cliff, and then we saw them - PENGUINS!!! IN THE WILD!!! it was freezing cold but we spent a long time outside gawking at the penguins on the rock. there were also seals lazying about. IN THE WILD!!!!
just when we walked towards our car cheyah and aida suddenly got excited. they thought they saw a whale's tail!! far out in the sea we could make out white splashes of water, maybe it was a whale. maybe it was a whole bunch of whales! but none raised their tail again so, but still... WHALES!!!!!
after that we came to the beach where the morearki boulders are. they looked like dinosours eggs. some that had split open even looked like they had yolks in them.
oamaru is also a place to sight penguins, and there were two kinds even. it holds the title of most victorian town. buildings that looked like they belong in bath, uk. we searched for the penguins ourselves and couldn't believe our eyes when we saw hundreds of them on a pier! unfortunately we were wrong and the 'penguins' were only birds. hundreds of birds sitting on the pier waiting for something.
finally we came again on the road that we travelled when we set out for lake tekapo. ah, memories. stopped in timaru and we were told that salmon could be had at the rakaia river - the place where we first saw the huge salmon statue. checked out the salmon tale and the price was a little pricy (22dollars for a salmon meal - when the last salmon meal we had was about 40 dollars for one smoked piece and one raw fillet!)
we passed by cookietime factory, and intersection to lincoln - dah dekat rumah wanis! and proceeded into christchuch town to look for a halal american restaurant whose address i have taken from zaaba.com. cari punya cari ended up at a mall where the address was and the restaurant must have been out of business. guess what our makan besar ended up being... KEBAB. yurgghhh. but again, lapar punya pasal. and i had pida(betul ke nih), a turkish bread. kind of stuffed croissant. the mall's name was northlands mall.
after food we checked into our backpackers. it was in a housing area, very safe looking. for the first time the duvets are not provided, we had to rent them for 2dollars a pop. minah kat kaunter mata besar sungguh.
we had previously called wanis to ask where's the best place to shop for souvenirs since she mentioned that christchurch has the cheapest. it was in the area of the cathedral square, meaning right smack dab into the city.
christchurch supposedly is the most english town outside the UK. it even has a river avon through it where you could go punting. we found a public parking place where the rate goes by how much coin you put in - macam kat malaysia.
shopping...then inquired about whale watching the next day (in kaikoura), and for dinner we went to wanis'. glad to see the kids again.
that night our desire to go see the whales was shattered - the cruise was fully booked, since there's only 1 company handling cruises, 1 company handling heliviews and 1 company handling sea planes view.
we promised to come again to catch the whales. chewahh.
friday 16th april - we decided to just wander around christchurch and not go driving out - the options were to see the hanmer springs (hot water spring) or akaroa (french town by the sea). loosely we decided on the gondola and maybe the maori cultural village. but k.mai was not too keen on the maori cv. (gondola pun tak suka juga tapi majority wins)
you can already see the whole of christchurch on the gondola ride but the view was of course better at the top of the hill. it was windy and freezing cold though! none of our pictures with ourselves in it turned out great-because it was too cold, too windy and also because the sun as too bright our faces was just black against the scenery. but the scenery... on the lyttleton harbor we thought we saw dolphins frolicking but it was too far to tell.
danish had invited us to a picnic lunch so after we descended we followed his parents and brothers to the botanical garden. we caught sight of the art center and it was beautiful! very english! although k.mai, masyoo and aida were unimpressed (dah duduk UK lama la katakan... teman dok mesia je...).
we picnicked by the lake. the sun was out, it was a gorgeous afternoon. then danish and adib fed the ducks with lefotver fried rice, and when adib threw them into the water the ducks with the blue bill and legs dived down to look for the grains! sooo amazing and too adorable. there was also a lone black swan that suddenly came to join in the fray, also the mine-mine birds swam in the water to parade as ducks.
after lunch wanis wanted to take us shopping for cheap all-blacks canterbury merchandise, so we went to this brands outlet mall in hornby. at first we had no idea that we were headed to a mall so as soon as we saw the sign we were excited. fine, i was excited. i looooooooove shopping.
didn't buy anything at glassons (old stock!) or cotton on (except a purple inner shirt for 10NZD, but spent on a top at jayjays. me and cheyah... memang takleh shopping bersama2. saling mengencourage! very dangerous.
after that we wanted to take pictures at lincoln university, so followed wanis back to her hood... on the way saw kmart (again, excited) and later learned that that was the biggest mall in south island. !!! 1 tingkat only ok!
midvalley could kick it's ass.
after taking pictures in lincoln we were determined to go our own way after that even though wanis insisted on having dinner at her house. but we truly wanted to wander off by ourselves and did not want to trouble her anymore. danish was soooo sad and his face was just heartbroken and i almost gave in but managed to console him by promising to drop by their house tomorrow before going to the airport.
our plan was actually to go back to the biggest mall... mueheh heh heh. and for dinner we wanted to try the fish and chips place wanis recommended that was halal and where she regularly eats. the name was theo. very near the biggest mall summore.
so we got to theo's but the only parking available was the 15minutes spot (btw parking kat new zealand got indicator how long you can park... for free. in malls there were 1 hr, 2 hrs, 3 hrs or fifteen minutes (right in front of entrance) ). at theo's i think we (fine, I) was blinded by the sight of many fishes and the awesome menu that was no kebab, that i decided to just order 5 fish and chips meal and 1 scallop meal. i was paying, so. kmai did mentioned that wouldn't it be too much? but i waved it away because FISH. HUNGRY. NOT KEBABS.
when it was our turn to get our meal the brown paper packaging was huge and, quite some numbers. i realised soon after ordering and while waiting that we could have just ordered 4 fishes, 2 large fries, 5 crab sticks or 5 scallop or things like that... not terus meal deals. sheesh. the old lady by the door laughed when she saw what we was carrying away. ye lah pegangnya 3 orang, kecik-kecik(by omputeh standards) pulak tuh, tapi nak makan mcm 10 orang. hish.
after theo's we proceeded to the biggest! mall! in! south island! and kmart! made a beeline to kmart but kmart was quite disappointing. nothing much to be adored. stopped by glassons too. no dollars dropped. lastly we went through farmers. funny name but apparently a household fashion department store. after farmers we stopped by a shoe store and that was when i realized i had dropped my favourite cat charm bracelet somewhere. got me really bummed. i had spent the whole time making sure it will be around, only to lose it on my very last day :(.
got back to the hostel and had our humongous fish and chips dinner in our room because the kitchen has been taken over by two dudes bonding over music and music videos, and one of them had dreadlocks and macam dah menonggang sedikit. heee.
our last night in new zealand!